This handy PHP command line script for Ubuntu will switch your desktop wallpaper over whenever you like, generating you something new using letters you define and the fonts available on your system.

Typographers are a strange breed, often to be found discussing stems, glyphs and serifs, and going misty eyed at the mention of Helvetica Neue. But they are people too, and people deserve wallpaper that doesn't sit and stagnate. Perhaps even wallpaper that they like to look at!

So I've written a handy little script, to be run from the command line (and only tested on Ubuntu ... specifically my own installation of Ubuntu), which will generate and utilise a new wallpaper whenever you like.

How It Works

The script picks one of a collection of letters (or numbers, or ampersands) you give it to choose from. It then picks a single random font from your computer. Finally, using the colours and dimensions you define, it draws you a nice new wallpaper and tells Gnome to use it.

The script is written in PHP, and can be called from the command line. You can configure the options within the script or pass them as command line arguments. Instructions are in the file.

It requires PHP (command line version) and ImageMagick (probably version 6.3.5-7 or higher). And some fonts.